Here is a small offering that is going out either a week late, or a week early. Normally, I’d send out the month’s second offering on the third Tuesday, which would have been last week. However, I sent out an e-mail version of my mailed list the week before. I thought about waiting for next week to send this out but then realized that I will probably be buried under preparations for Socorro (it is a moderately large display I set up – probably 2/3 of Denver or Tucson) and projects I need to get done before the weather really starts getting ugly (another solar electric array, redoing some piping on the hot water system and more – parts for these jobs are on order now).

Speaking of my mailed list. I’d like to know if there are folks out there that normally get my mailed list (paper in an envelope) that didn’t receive one this time. I have had a few people contact me asking why they didn’t get their paper copy. I am curios to see if there is a problem with these things coming up “lost” in the mail or not. Years ago I had one entire mailing disappear. It was right after 9/11 and I finished stuffing envelopes and sealing the things while on the road and mailed them at a “foreign” post office (one that wasn’t in the return address). That entire mailing simply went into the trash as far as I can tell (no one got a copy and I had to re-do the whole thing once I was back home).

Also considering the mailed list: Once again, I had a number of people contact me and ask me to remove them from the mailing list. Not because they were bothered by receiving it but because they want me to save the stamp. I do appreciate that but I don’t mind using a stamp. As dumb as this might sound, my theory is that a paper list has the chance to sell something until the person who received it crumples it up and throws it away. An e-mail offering gets buried under new stuff in the in box in a matter of minutes to hours, so its effective sales time is measured, at best, in hours to a day maybe. I have had people rediscover a paper list and buy something from it months later (and, surprisingly, this often happens with someone who told me to save the stamps at some point earlier). So, If you truly ONLY want the e-mail version I will remove your address from the mailing files. However, do be aware that I really don’t mind using the stamp and personally think that there are some advantages to it.

AGOUDAL, Morocco: Coarsest octahedrite (IIAB). Found 2012.
Here is a really neat little end piece that came from a collector/ dealer in Germany. It is in a nice plastic display box with information. This also has desiccant but this still oxidized on the polished surface (and, consequently stained the white foam backing a bit) as the piece seems to never have been coated. I have fixed that part. I if a gentle sanding (so as not to completely destroy the etch) and then coated it. Regardless, this is a really cool piece in that it has a large surface are for its weight and a nice 7mm diameter natural hole through it!
13.7 gram end piece – 28mm x 22mm x 7mm - $25

BRENHAM, Kansas: (Pallasite). Found 1882.
This is “micro mount” end piece that would easily fit in a small magnifier box like I used to use for some of my specimens in a capsule or such. It has a couple olivine crystals – one 10mm x 6mm.
3.0 gram end piece – 17mm x 11mm x 8mm - $10

CASTALIA, North Carolina: (H5) brecciated, xenolithic. Fell May 14, 1874. Tkw = 7.3 kilograms.
I can’t remember if I had any pieces of this one in the past. If I did, they would have likely been just small fragments in a capsule. This is not huge, but it is big enough to show chondrules, metal and even has a nice edge of fusion crust. This is a meteorite that seems to be mostly accounted for in museum collections. Of the 7.3 kilograms known it seems that over 6 kilograms are tied up in collections.
.51 gram part slice with crust along longest edge – 9mm x 6mm x 5mm - $100

KORRA KORRABES, Namibia. (H3). Found November 1996, recognized August 2000. Tkw = 140+kg.
This meteorite was originally found by a farmer who was using a metal-detector to find Gibeon irons in a dry river bed. He discovered a 27kg piece (along with some smaller fragments) and used it in a cemented rock wall. Thakfully, Ronnie McKenzie recognized it as a meteorite and it was removed. Further searching of the original find area has turned up additional pieces buried in the river bottom. These pieces are from an ugly fragment that I got in at the show as apart of a small (5 pieces) collection. I cut it open after I got home as this stuff looks far better on the inside than the outside. All of the resulting pieces (yep, it broke a bit) are “end pieces”/ cut fragments. The cut faces shoe a good number of chondrules (as a type 3 should). The three largest pieces also show some breccia fragments as well. I think that this material is, by far, the cheapest H3 available at the moment.
1) Cut fragments:
a) 1.2 grams – 17mm x 7mm x 6mm - $3
b) 2.3 grams – 23mm x 13mm x 6mm - $5
c) 10.2 grams – 20mm x 13mm x 18mm - $15
d) 56.5 grams – 45mm x27mm x 20mm - $70
e) 64.1 grams – 47mm x 27mm x 20mm - $80

NWA 482: Lunar impact melt breccia. Found 2000. Tkw = 1015 grams.
This, along with the beautiful NWA (2995) slice listed below, came to me in Tucson through a route other than the original seller. In this case though, this piece (and I do have a couple small pieces around .1g size) is available for a deal much cheaper than this material is usually available for. I am not going to openly list the price here as the main owners of the remaining pieces of this are friends of mine and I really DON’T want people going back to them and demanding that they match this special offering price (which I am sure will happen endlessly if I do openly publish the price here). Also, please “request price” only if you are fairly seriously interested in the piece. Not openly listing the price but then passing it out to hundreds of people who are just curious would likely put me in the same hot water as openly listing it in the first place. Anyway this is a fairly large piece so the dollar price is still quite large but the per gram price is quite low (compared to listed web-site prices anyway). This slice is light gray and has a number of thin black shock veins. This is a part slice, though it has no cut edges (and the broken edge looks quite natural actually), There is nice fusion crust around ½ or so of the edge of this slice as well.
2.52 grams – 45mm x 18mm x 2mm – Price On Request

NWA 2995: Lunar feldspathic breccia. Found 2005. Tkw = 538 grams.
Like the above piece, this is also a got it second hand specimen and priced (per gram) well below what this stuff usually sells for (I have sold quite a lot of this at around $2000 to $2500/g over the years). This is one that probably shows the best classic Moon rock texture (angular white and light gray clasts in a dark gray matrix) and generally sells itself over cheaper alternatives just from its looks. Like the NWA (482) piece I am not going to openly list the price here for the same reasons. This is a beautiful display piece that I’d want to keep if I hadn’t already managed to pick up a larger piece (through trading off MY NWA (482) slice) some years ago. I can’t be certain, but this looks to be a complete slice or one that was broken in such a way that it retains a complete look to it.
3.08 gram slice – 42mm x 30mm x 1mm – Price On Request

ODESSA, Texas: Coarse octahedrite (IAB). Found 1922.
This is a nice solid individual that has had one end cut off and the face etched. The exterior surface has been left completely natural and is among the best I have seen. It has a pleasing brown color, some nice texture but no scaling/ flaking. A very old sticker attached has “2 ¾ oz – OM, Odessa Meteorite, 1 ¼ mi”. The last but refers to another label (handwritten) that comments that this piece was found “1 ¼ mile north and 15 (?) west of crater”.
74.2 gram individual with cut and etched face – 40mm x 28mm x 18mm - $90

Wednesday, 14 October 2015

Here is
the e-mail version of my mailed after Denver
list (that many of you are now also receiving by mail). The show was quite slow
foot traffic wise, but sales seemed to hold up well and ended at somewhat above
average. Not bad considering the stock market gyrations we have had lately as
well. I did pick up a few items at the show but mostly just usual inventory
items as “new” stuff (mostly unstudied) was generally quite richly priced (even
though the dollar is up substantially against most other currencies). New Mexico Mineral Symposium,Socorro,
New Mexico: I’ll be out of town from
November 11th through about the 18th (weather conditions
will determine). I will have a room set up at the Socorro Comfort Inn (1259
Frontage Rd. NW) supposedly room 119, but this
could change. I should be set up and open Friday afternoon (the 13th)
until late (11PM or so) and then open
Saturday from around 5PM until late
once more.

Here are some generally larger pieces of this meteorite that
created a crater in its fall around 5000 years ago. This event was likely
witnessed by people, as debris from the impact partially cover a trade route
through the area. I had thought about
not putting these on a mailed list again as I have already offered similar
pieces in the not too distant past (though at a somewhat higher price).
However, every time I put pieces of this out at shows, they tend to sell
rapidly, so collectors seem to still be interested in pieces of this meteorite.
Also, my first offerings were all quite small specimens. I am offering a few
such here, but now is a chance to get a substantial sized piece of this
interesting and increasingly famous meteorite. These are all natural shrapnel fragments.
They have been air/ soda blasted to remove loose dirt but are otherwise left as
found.

I picked up a small batch of nice little individuals at a
show awhile back and then set them aside, kind of forgetting about them (they
were so small and a small amount so I kind of ignored them). The fireball of
this fall was witnessed across a huge area; Alberta,
Manitoba and Saskatchewan.
Thankfully, all sky cameras and security cameras caught the fall. From these,
and some eyewitness accounts, a likely fall area was calculated. Seven days
after the fall, some meteorites were recovered on top of a frozen pond in the
calculated fall area. Many more pieces have been found since. I am not sure
when these particular pieces were recovered but they do seem to be very fresh.
Some have some hints of dirt but otherwise show fresh black crust with only the
tinniest hints of browning (if any). Nice little individuals.

Here is a neat little fully published main mass of a
somewhat rarer type priced well below what it would normally cost me to just
get the thing classified! The exterior has the usual wind-polishing but still
retains a somewhat sculpted meteorite shape (with the larger smoother side
showing remnants of contraction cracks). The interior is quite fresh, showing
fresh metal and sulfides (but not a lot – this is truly a low iron LL) in a
brecciated light tan (almost orange) to light brown matrix.

Well, here it is; my first NWA meteorite that is now one
number longer. It seems the researchers skipped most (all?) of the NWA (9000)
range and jumped right to 10K recently. This meteorite is one that Steve Arnold
sent me a piece of to get my opinion on whether or not I thought it might be a
type 3. I said it certainly LOOKED like one but I could not be absolutely
certain. I have often been “burned” by type 4s that were supposed to be (and
certainly looked like) type 3s and the seller of this was pricing it as a type
3. There was something like 3kg or so of this available originally. Buy the
time we sorted out that this WAS indeed really a type 3 (and a fairly low one
at that – something between 3.4 and 3.6) only 900g of this stuff was left to
purchase. I got around 400 grams that I have cut up to offer here. This is
quite fresh, showing LOTS of chondrules and fresh metal in a light gray to tan
matrix. I do have some end pieces available as well. The weights on those are:
14.4g, 45.8g, 57.3g and are priced at $3.50/ grams.

I got a 3.5kg or so sack of mostly small fragments of this
at the Denver Show. I
wish I could have gotten more and bigger pieces after cutting some of this
though. It is quite nice inside. The background is fairly light gray, making
the chondrules and the common, often quite large CAI’s show very nicely. This
has some weathering to it, but this seems to have only made some of the
chondrules turn various shades of orange giving this stuff even greater visual
appeal.

I got this from Steve Arnold in Tucson
after he paid some really stupid low price for it in an auction. Steve was
worried that he might be selling me the “only easy to cut ureilite” he has ever
had. He needn’t have worried. Though this stone is oddly labeled as “low shock,
S1” in the bulletin, it was anything but easy to prepare. I trashed a half
dozen or so blades and finished off the last of my diamond polishing belts in
cutting and preparing this stuff. I finally won the battle, but it took many
days of work to complete. This did turn out nice though. I didn’t put a high
polish on it so the individual grains show clearly.

1)Slices:

a) 1.1 grams - 15mm x 7mm x 3mm - $28

b) 2.2 grams - 18mm x 18mm x 3mm - $55

c) 3.0 grams - 25mm x 15mm x 3mm - $75

d) 5.0 grams - 28mm x 24mm x 3mm - $120

e) 8.1 grams - 35mm x 25mm x 4mm - $180

2)End
piece:

a) 16.3 grams - 30mm x 20mm x 18mm - $325

d) 6.8 grams - 30mm x 20mm x 5mm - $100

e) 12.8 grams - 45mm x 24mm x 6mm - $180

IMPACTITE:LakeWanapitei,
Sudbury, Ontario, Canada.

I got these in Tucson
over a year ago and then forgot I had them (they were tucked into a small
padded envelope). These are mostly 20gram or so thick slices and cut fragments
of “Suevite” from the LakeWanapitei crater. This crater is
5.2 miles in diameter and estimated to be 37.2 million years old. These pieces
show varying amounts if clasts in a light greenish background. Most of these
have not been highly polished (the material is too soft) but spray-coated to
bring out the colors and features better, as a high polish would.

20+
gram slice or end piece (state your preference) - $20

Please note:

Shipping:
For small US
orders $3 should still be fine for now. Larger orders are now $12 (insurance is
extra if desired – I’ll look it up if you want it). Overseas prices have gone
up A LOT the past couple years. Now small overseas orders are around $9 (I’ll
have to custom quote any larger items/ orders). Thankfully, it seems that the
rate for registration (recommended on more valuable overseas orders) is still
around $12.

I do
have a new fax machine that seems to work (but I have to answer it and manually
turn it on), so overseas people can contact me that way if they must However, for overseas orders, it probably is
best to go ahead and use my brmeteorites@yahoo.com
e-mail.